Lenin's Harem Read online

  I feared these passages more than anything in war: isolated, clinging to a pitching wooden target, unable to move, counting the seconds until we reached the other side. Once across, we were comparatively safe, the stalemate between the kaiser’s 8th Army and our battalions, offering a more predictable, knowable risk.

  Until today. The Germans had changed everything.

  *****

  Hours before I had been standing with Gaters on the North Bank, watching an intense German artillery barrage on the Russian troops across the Daugava: Lightning flashed up and down the line, echoing explosions chasing herons from the river’s surface, pillars of flame offering glimpses beneath the horizon’s smoky clouds. We knew the 8th Army was trying to break the Russians. For over an hour it had continued. Within the sparse pauses we’d heard puzzling sounds drifting across the waters: the anguished cries of men. Not the sharp, common screams of the freshly wounded soldier, but a fog of hovering, agonized moans. Like the calls of a thousand spirits unleashed from Hell.

  Twenty minutes later, the yellow-green mist rose above the dusty smog of combat, slowly windblown toward the river. Beneath, a dozen men fled down to the banks, dropping their weapons, discarding packs, helmets and jackets, so they might run faster from the advancing shroud.

  At my shoulder, the atheist Gaters whispered: ‘My god.’

  I folded my arms to pin my trembling hands, the shudder carrying to my weakening legs. God had little to do with this, Lieutenant. We had heard the stories from France.

  The first group reached a small ferry, desperately unmooring it from the black wooden dock. At the top of the embankment, the greenish smog was cresting, like a breaking wave on the ocean shore. Nearly enveloped, a mounted soldier whipped his horse, taking the riverbank’s slope at a full gallop.

  Heavier than air, the clover mist seemed to accelerate, seeking the river itself. The rider’s beast lost its footing, falling toward the muddy bank, a brown dusty trail as it slid to a stop, head hidden by the river reeds. The man abandoned his steed, running along the water edge toward the dock, screaming out to the drifting ferry, the cloud now a hundred meter-high wall toppling over him.

  The ferry too far, he dove into the expansive river, desperately swimming. The soldiers on the boat reached out helping hands, even as those at the helm gunned the engine, daring not to tarry.

  The gas eclipsed the shuddering horse, the haze spreading across the water, rolling over the swimming man, the first wisps caressing the stern of the fleeing boat.

  Farther inland were more explosions. Fresh, dark green clouds were thrown higher into the air, like ominous forested mountains towering behind the thickening hills spreading toward us.

  ‘How much, Guntis? How much are they using?’

  There was a horrible cracking of heavy wood, like a mammoth oak felled in the forest. The ferry had run aground full-speed, farther down on our side of the river, sharp brown stones puncturing its eggshell hull. One man was thrown out, landing in the greening waters, carried down stream. None of his comrades moved to aid him. Instead, each lay doll-like loose, coughing, choking, pleading for help.

  Gaters and I sprinted for the distant boat, picking our way over sharp rocks, and around muddy inlets. As I cautiously slowed to navigate a flow-slickened stone at the water’s edge, a sparrow passed my shoulder swooping low for insects on the river’s surface. Suddenly the arc of its flight ended, falling leaden into the flowing grey-brown water, the swish of the bird’s tiny body as loud as the bells of St. Peter’s tower.

  ‘Run Gaters! Run!’ And the two of us fled uphill, trailing a Russian artillery crew just now abandoning their gun.

  I closed my ears to the screaming men below. ‘God forgive us.’

  *****

  As I climbed up Saulkalne’s dock ladder, a shell found the river edge upstream, showering my back with clumps of steaming mud, fist-sized drops of water, burning reeds and smoking black leaves. I protectively clutched the package to my chest. No rusty nails, old glass, barbed wire in that explosion, thank God. None of those. And nothing worse.

  I shook my head, the mud chunks sliding off my helmet to the wet, aged planks beneath my running feet. At the end of the pier stood Major Tentelis, tall and impatient, as if my errand had only been a quick jaunt down the office hall.

  His look was expectant, controlled, but I knew him well enough now, nearly a year in his service. There was a hint of fear in the wavering of his hand as he returned my salute. He prayed for good news, but dared not expect it. My next words might bring orders of his court marshal, the imminent destruction of his men, or both.

  ‘Well Rooks?’

  ‘The entire Second Battalion is coming, sir.’ I pulled the package from beneath my jacket. ‘With the masks.’

  His long face breathed a sigh of relief, tipping his hat back as if to let his anguished mind have some air. When the Germans had launched their chlorine attacks, the Russian Battalions were alone here. The 12th Army brain trust had ordered the Latvian troops to cross the river to reinforce immediately.

  Without waiting for gas masks to arrive.

  The Latvian company commanders, following the lead of Captain Klavins, had refused the order, holding out for the equipment. To the Russians it was treason. To the Latvians, it was simply survival. Everyone could feel the porcelain 12th Army cracking.

  While others haggled, Major Tentelis had crossed the Daugava to assess the scene himself. So he was the last to know.

  I smiled. ‘They caved sir. The generals ‘discovered’ 40,000 masks they had forgotten about. Expect them on a railroad car in the next two hours, our men shortly thereafter.’

  Relief mixed with regret in his voice. ‘They think of us as cannon fodder.’ Tentelis wearily looked at me: ‘Do we have to fight them as well?’

  I dreaded that possibility, literally meant or not. Yet, right now I could hardly blame him. ‘I doubt that, sir. The masks are coming.’

  I unwrapped the soaked package, inside were two masks, two pair of goggles. The former resembling a bloated surgeon’s mask, the cloth covering stuffed with treated cotton. The latter, the thick leather bound spectacles chemists and pilots sported. I handed one of each to the major. He stuffed them in his greatcoat pocket.

  As we turned away from the docks, I let my eyes wander to take in our surroundings. The world on this side of the river, wore a hazy, shifting green sheen. Vapors still carried on the wind, and toxic mists lingered on the road, scampering away from the breezy motion of our steps. Overhead, the sky’s palette was over-mixed; the jaundiced clouds turning the afternoon sun a thick sludgy grey.

  I trudged inland, spying nearby the horse abandoned by the fleeing soldier. Its body lay on the riverbank, head fallen into the brown waters, a black little rapid flowing over its submerged snout. About the body lay the rigid forms of several black ravens. Having descended too early for feasting, they had soon joined the meal.

  As I walked behind Tentelis, I noticed the gas pooled thicker in still places; a dark clover lurking in the hollow of an oak tree; seeping into old footprints; laying still on a mud puddle; or sleeping in the shadows of marker stones. It hurt my eyes, refusing to be in focus, always remaining indistinct, fuzzy. Greedily, it sought man’s possessions, a tint inside empty bottles along the path, a fully brewed soup in abandoned helmets on the riverbank. Wherever there was shelter from a breeze the gas congealed. Like the spirits of those killed seeking to hide from Gabriel’s gathering chariot.

  Dead birds littered the landscape. An entire flock of geese, having fallen to earth roughly in unison, their distorted formation running across the roof of an empty barracks, disappearing into the shriveled field behind. Watch dogs lay chained, tethered forever to their posts.

  Following the major, we took the long desolate hike past the stacked wood of the bunk houses, through a maze of sandbag and mud walls, down, down and down again toward the trenches. A world haunted by phosphorescent ghosts, but vacant of men, there was barely a soldier in r
esidence. Even the artillery guns lay empty, abandoned. The corpses of animals were everywhere, the grass shriveled and brown, but so few soldiers, living or dead.

  ‘Major Tentelis, where is everyone sir?’

  ‘Along the first line. Every remaining man is dug into the fortifications. We can’t let them know how badly they’ve hurt us.’

  And exactly how badly was that? ‘What is the present situation here, Major?’

  He did not turn around. ‘Distressing. I’ve been a soldier twenty years, and never seen anything like this. I’m told at least two thousand dead.’

  ‘Two thousand? In a single hour’s bombardment?’

  ‘It could have been worse. One battalion was on leave. Unfortunately,’ he stopped, pointing back toward the river, ‘they took the masks with them Lieutenant. The men here had no protection.’

  ‘None?’ There had been whispers at headquarters, but nothing like this…

  ‘The usual 12th Army mismanagement, yes? Too bad the Germans chose to douse us with chlorine in our very moment of vulnerability.’ There was grey despair in his eyes. ‘Such the coincidence.’

  A horrible coincidence. ‘What else could it be, sir?’

  The question transformed him, sparking a cruel sneer: ‘Tsar Nicholas’s court is full of bootlickers Rooks, some of whom have loyalties resting in the opposite trenches. Nothing is secret for long.’

  Another barbed reference to the Baltic-German aristocracy? My family certainly had no access to the tsar. I was sick of Tentelis’s rhetoric. Such a typical Latvian: finding conspiracy, blaming my people for Russian incompetence. Certainly a topic for Captain Vereshchagin’s report.

  I responded without thinking: ‘We’re not always the villains, Major.’ Fortunately, my muttered remark went unnoticed by my commander. Or appeared so.

  Privately smoldering, we passed into a flooded tunnel, green-stained water rising past our heels, the bodies of mice riding the waves our steps created. The major took off his cap, tucking it somewhere inside his long coat. He pulled his mask over his head, and secured his goggles.

  ‘I’d put yours on for safe measure. The chlorine is mainly at rest now, but there are still pockets lingering in these passages.’

  I took off my helmet, started to drop it at my feet, only to remember the chlorine vapors licking our muddy boots. Instead, I pinned it between my knees, and pulled the mask over my head, letting it hang about my neck. I tightened the goggles, replaced my helmet, and pulled the cloth up over my mouth. It was odd how donning this mask made me feel so alone. My breathing was constricted; the warm exhales reflecting back into my nostrils. Despite the mammoth size of the eyepieces my vision seemed clipped, the margins now black and ominous as if I peered out of a deep cave. A strand of green mist had infected one goggle, forcing me to remove it all and start again. I felt tired, short of breath, the mask blocking the intake of oxygen.

  I could not imagine fighting in these things. The Germans had upped the stakes again, turning the air itself into a weapon.

  Damn them.

  My own breathing filled my ears. If the major was speaking it was nearly impossible to hear him. He motioned for me to follow, moving farther into the blackness of the tunnel. For a few moments, I felt as if we were in Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, armored in our own contained environment, helmeted explorers walking along the inky ocean’s floor.

  Till my eyes adjusted, and I beheld our surroundings. No, we were in a far different tome, pinned in the burning pages of Dante’s Inferno. We’d tunneled into Hell itself.

  The underpass was clogged with the dead. We could not move forward without climbing over one, often several. Seeking shelter from the chlorine, they must have fled down into the passageway, trapping themselves in a low confined space where the toxins built fastest. A sad and lethal mistake. Most were curled up, bodies in fetal positions, heads buried beneath sandbags, wrapped inside jackets, all in an attempt to protect their faces, to find one last gasp of passable air. One at my feet, his blue eyes fixed on the ceiling, had torn a handkerchief and stuffed it inside his mouth to filter his lungs. The cloth’s tail fluttered as I passed, stepping over the man’s waist to follow the major.

  Tentelis had stopped, waiting for me in front of a mound of dead Russians piled nearly to the roof. How many? Ten? A dozen? It was hard to say. The survivors beyond must have just tossed them down into this hole.

  A whisper came from his mask. I motioned that I could not hear. He moved closer, his covered mouth pressing against my ear. I knew he was shouting at the top of his lungs, the words were drawn out, elongated, but still I could barely understand him. It was more than the mask. There was an odd, voluminous noise coming from beyond the bodies.

  ‘Be careful here, when you climb over Lieutenant. Don’t stand up, you’ll be above the trench wall!’

  With that, he began to surmount the corpses, gingerly placing a boot in the gap between one soldier’s chest and another’s leg, like a mountain climber finding footholds in the sheer face of a granite cliff. Slowly, he progressed, liquids and film affixing to his uniform as he crawled over.

  The major disappeared into the graying light of the opening near the ceiling. If there was a ladder it must be buried behind the bodies. There was little choice. I tried to find a step, a footrest that did not unnerve me walking on the dead. I put my boot on someone’s upper arm, pressing up, finding my next step on an exposed shoulder. My grip slipped slightly, my hand falling from a thick thigh to the next soldier’s open mouth. I shuddered, and apologized to the deceased. Discovering a wide neck to grasp, I pulled myself higher.

  I slid through the gap, mindful of the major’s warning, and threw myself straight down, rolling into the grey paste of the trench. An acidic, burning stench caught my nose, making my eyes water even through mask and goggles. I struggled to my feet, keeping my shoulders bent in fear of sniper bullets. Hunched, I followed the major through these channels.

  Always horrific, the filthy dugouts had descended into something worse than I had imagined possible. A wretched noise shivered my soul: the din of 10,000 men, coughing and hacking in an anti-chorus, the retching ignorant of rhythm, every gasp moving to its own time, finding its own awful key.

  Trailing behind the major, I stared at the poor souls who manned the walls. A hierarchy of men lay soaked in these muddy ravines: the living, the dead, and those somewhere in between.

  The relatively healthy pressed forward in the fortifications, one foot on the fire-step, holding rifle at ready, or loading the machine gun of his partner. Their faces were blackened, exhausted, ankles deep in mud, or yellowish water. Denying to their officers and themselves any tickle that might catch in their throats. Few had any obvious surface wounds, but by countenance and body language, most looked physically broken, gas hollowed into brittle shells. Even so these Russians kept their positions.

  The dead mirrored the living: forming a parallel line along the rear of the trench, the corpses often strung two and three together. Mostly uncovered, their mouths opened in a last gasp, stains of foam on some lips and jackets, the arrogant gas pooling in the throats of others. Stones in a human wall, like the dugouts themselves, continuing as far as I could see in the dimming light.

  These were hard enough to accept, my mind desperate to deny such horrors, to cast them out as nightmare. But those in flux were by far the worst. Men writhing in the mire or propped fitfully against a bag wall; trapped in fits of retching, never-ending spasms of hoarse coughs. Their respiratory systems destroyed, it was physically impossible for them to stop. A soldier held by his comforting fellows continued to gag until the yellow-white foam turned red, until it was too painful to breathe in again and finally, often after tens of hours, he succumbed. Then his comrades pinned a few words to his departing soul and stacked him with the others.

  I passed a man at his post. He had wrapped himself in his coat so completely, hiking it up to his shoulders so that I could see nothing of him. Only the muzzle of his rifle
protruded between the buttons.

  The major stood ahead, his mask down, goggles back; he leaned forward freely speaking with a soldier. The Russian’s jacket was tied loosely about his waist, though he still sported his helmet. His uniform sleeves were rolled up, and his long undershirt seemed to have been shredded to the elbow, as if he had been attacked by a pack of wild dogs. His accent possessed a hint of something else. Finnish? Polish? Or the unrecognizable cadence of another isolated village in this endless Russian Empire?

  ‘Three gases, sir. At least as much as we can count from the shell bursts. The second was the worst, it caught the lip of the trench behind you and the explosion pushed the stuff right up the channel at us. Like a bullet down a barrel.’

  Tentelis looked him over: ‘You seem in good health son, was your coat the only protection?’ If the Russian was offended by being called the diminutive ‘son’ by a Latvian he did not show it. He seemed pleased to be receiving an officer’s attention.

  ‘On the first gassing, yes, Major. After that, we got some piss rags, and did the best we could.’

  I interrupted: ‘Piss rags, Private?’

  ‘A filter in a pinch, sir. I’d call it a ‘field’ adoption of something Captain Klavins suggested.’

  Tentelis broke in: ‘Can I see one son?’

  ‘Begging the major’s pardon sir, but I distributed them all. And I’m kind of out of cloth.’ Somehow he grinned. ‘Kinda out of piss too.’

  This man had been gassed three times today and could still smile. Amazing.

  *****

  Twenty minutes later, I sat waiting on a sandbag, shaking a strand of fading green fog marooned in the bottom of a tin can. It slithered to the lowest point, trying to keep up as I rolled the cylinder in my palms, like a rodent trapped in a perpetual running wheel.